A Tirade against Minimalism: A Review of Broke and Fabulous in the 21st Century

★★★☆☆

This is maximalism on stage. With a set absolutely packed with a trunk full of clothes, an entire double bed, a dresser, and more, Broke and Fabulous in the 21st Century might genuinely trick you into thinking you’ve walked into a real bedroom, even if it then winks at the audience with the revelation that this “flat” is actually more of a squatting situation in an old theatre.

Reminiscent of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s show Crashing, Dale Robertson’s new play follows charmingly not-that-young-anymore Londoners as they try to afford somewhere to live and someone to love. Written and directed by Robertson, who also plays the lead role, Alex, Broke and Fabulous is pitched as “an unabashed dramedy about two fabulous best friends, Alex and Petunia (Olive McHugh), chasing their dreams and navigating love in their chaotic 30s.” 

Alex is living in an abandoned theatre which will soon kick him out, while Petunia (called Pet in the show) is living with her boyfriend of six months, who’s never home. Taking place over roughly two days, the play opens with Alex in the throes of passion with an unnamed suitor (Rowland Stirling). It’s clear he’s more of a situationship, and he coincidentally exits just before a drunk and furious Pet storms in, upset with her absent partner. As Pet and Alex commiserate with substances, they consider the consequences of their places in life: their living situations, careers after drama school, and relationship statuses. 

It’s funny, packed mostly with one-liners from McHugh, yet there’s a definite air of melancholia at the unspoken distance between these two best friends. Pet hasn’t ever seen Alex’s place, and she makes repeated pleas for them to see one another more. Nevertheless, there is no lack of love between the two, who clearly have a long history. 

And there’s certainly quite a lot to be proud of in this new play, which reads first and foremost as unwaveringly honest. Jojo Wills Jest’s sound design is intriguing, with moments of hopeless morning news seeming to waft a bit liminally in and out of the play. Roxanne Ivy Roberts’ costuming is one of the show's clear winners, with McHugh’s wardrobe especially character-centric and compelling. 

McHugh herself is brilliant, and it’s impossible not to connect with her onstage, while Stirling’s suitor is absolutely hilarious as an animalistic, sex-obsessed young professional who works in “renewables.” Robertson’s writing is clearly personal, poignant, and pointing to the widening financial and cultural gap between generations, as Alex and Petunia’s dreams in drama school don’t seem to have quite added up yet. But even with all the glitz and glam and fabulousness, these drama school graduates might appreciate the sentiment that all that glitters is not gold. 

While Broke and Fabulous begins at a quick-witted, fast-paced clip, it slows significantly around the halfway mark, after which it seems to drag its feet. After this point, there’s no real emotional reward beyond the observation that their 30s aren’t all that they thought they would be, and the question of whether to pack up and settle down—one they never seem to tire of posing. 

With stop-start staccato dialogue that moves the plot forward at a snail’s pace, and enough intimacy to make even your most liberated friend glance at the playbill to check whether the actor wrote the script (they did) and if there was a coordinator (there was), Broke and Fabulous would benefit significantly from a cut. 

Perhaps rescued at the last moment with a brilliant and teasingly sprinkled-in reveal at the end, this is certainly not a piece of new writing to shelve. I beg you, though: bring it back out and take a good look. There’s enough here to ask for an edit and a tightening. I’ve even got some ideas.

Elena Cebulash

Cover image via @rodrigues_24_03